Hongshao Chicken Stew

Saw this chicken stew recipe in the Washington Post, and something about it appealed to me (perhaps the fact it has no finicky mincing or other detailed prep).

I found dikon radish at Whole Foods and napa cabbage at Publix (which surprised me), all the hard to find ingredients like strange spices and Shaoxing wine came from amazon (they have a recipe section in the Post just to boost Jeff Bezos' income I suspect :-).

The recipe as written makes a lot. The ingredients just barely fit in my 7 qt. dutch oven, but cooking was straightforward and matched the recipe. The only gotcha was the massive splattering of the sesame oil when browning the chicken at the beginning (yes, I dried them off, they still splattered something fierce).

I stuck the whole spices in a stainless steel infuser that clips closed to make them easy to pick out after cooking. The star anise dominates the aromas while cooking.

The result is definitely good (and definitely a lot - many leftover containers in the fridge now). I liked the taste of the cabbage best. The chicken was good and definitely in the fall off the bone stage. Never had dikon radish before, but it was good, and I think probably better than the alternative turnip or rutabaga mentioned in the recipe. The broth was good, which made the tofu good since tofu always just soaks up whatever flavors it is cooked in. The dried mushrooms came out very chewy, but could be eaten (or thrown away if you get tired of chewing). The eggs were very rubbery, but tasted OK once you penetrated the rubber.

Leftovers are good too. Heated it just enough to get things liquid again (10 minutes in microwave at 30% power), then while it wasn't too hot picked out the mushrooms and pulled the chicken bones out, leaving the pieces of chicken. Then heated it up to nice and warm eating temperature (4 minutes at 50%) and ate it like soup. Didn't bother with rice. Still some chicken gristle and ginger disks to be wary of and spit out (encourages eating slowly :-).